But I know that he feels that his relationship with Jez takes priority, and I know that he feels that allegiance to my brother so strongly because I feel it too.
I watch him, as he looks at me, with a longing that feels like a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach, then he pushes open the carriage door and walks away. And I wonder if there is anyone left in the world who can see me like he does.
***
It feels like everyone on the train is crammed into this one carriage. And I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world either.
News travelled fast that the guys had gotten out their instruments and were having an impromptu jam session in our first class car. Sebastian and Jez sit on the facing seats while Brad and Marius stand by, shit-eating grins on their faces as they take requests.
“Come on guys! Stump us, give us something hard!” Jez yells out, and someone in the crowd answers with a pair of songs for them to mash-up.
And of course, they kill it every time. They have an innate ability for weeding out the essence of every song, and finding that common thread that two completely different songs will inevitably share. Every song’s DNA is just a combination of those twelve notes, after all.
“Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G Minor and Nickelback’s Lips Of An Angel!” I yell out, and they all throw their heads back and groan. I double over in a hysterical cackle at my own evilness, and I’m leaning against the carriage door, holding my stomach, gasping for air.
“You complete and utter witch,” someone yells out over my head and it just makes me laugh even harder. It’s Marius. Who else would it be? I force myself to stand straight so I can watch their torment. He narrows his eyes at me and points his bow in my direction, threateningly.
I waggle my eyebrows and sing the first few lines of the song. I may know my way around a cello, but I was NOT gifted the talent of voice. Marius’s eyebrows spring up and his mouth drops open.
“I know, awesome, right?”
“Uh yeah, I’m… awed, that’s for sure. Like ‘Awwww… God must hate her to have given her a singing voice like that.'”
“Hey!”
“Excuse me, shush, we’re performing now. We Grammy-award-winning artists, that is.”
I poke my tongue out at him.
Which quickly turns into an all out, jaw-on-the-ground, how-the-hell-do-they-do-that expression when they turn my turn songs into a modern day masterpiece.
“I hate you,” I mouth to him when they’re done, the applause so deafening that I worry that the shaking of the train isn’t just from poor engineering.
“No, you don’t,” he mouths back.
And he’s right. What I feel is about the furthest thing from hate that you can feel.
Fuck.
“What’s next?” Brad yells out.
“Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem and Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart,” I yell out over the other voices.
All four of their heads whip around, mouths agape.
“FUCKING WITCH!” They yell in unison.
And this time, I laugh so long I actually think I’m going to die from oxygen deprivation to the brain.
Marius
It is finally quiet enough for me to hear what’s going on in my own brain. Once we changed trains over in Lyon to the train that will take us to Annecy, the guys whipped out their instruments again, and the last hour was one crazy request after another. Hailey finally intervened and kicked all the other travellers back to their seats, but probably not before sneakily taking some pictures and posting them all over our Instagram.
I put my viola back in her case and hand it to Hank, Sebastian’s nephew-slash-slave. Once he leaves I sit back in my empty carriage and close my eyes, enjoying the rocking of the train as it flies through the French countryside.
I’ve done this route so many times, I can picture what scene is flashing by the window. I’m kind of glad for the quiet now, because the last 45 minutes into Annecy is truly beautiful beyond measure.
I slide into the seat beside the window and press my face against it, waiting. The thing about Lake Annecy is her humility. She doesn’t announce her grandeur like many of the other Alpine stunners, she just creeps up on you out of nowhere.
Like… now. Just as the train turns this curve, there she will be, a glistening blue, ripple-less mirror spreading out in front of you, graced by lush, green grass that just begs you to fall in.
“Man, I’m wiped,” I suddenly hear Sebastian say, as he sinks into the seat next to me.
“Yeah, we’re not as young as we used to be,” I say, still staring out the window.
“Speak for yourself, I grow more young and awesome by the day. Practically reversing in age,” he grins, preening his always perfect hair.
“So, Cadence is dating a teenager, is what you’re saying.”
“No, I mean… she’s getting younger as well.”
“So, YOU’RE dating the teenager.”
He scrunches up his face. “Ew, yuck. Why do you have to make everything so offensive?”
My mouth twitches at the corners, remembering the last time someone said that.
“Anyway, that was fun, yeah?” He says, I assume referring to the impromptu jam sessions we just had.
“Yeah.”
“I miss those times. It seems we used to have them a lot more. Now it’s a lot of rehearsal time and big stadiums. Like we’re always trying to prepare for the next big thing.”
I nod. He knows I agree. We all agree. But we’re not going to complain. We know we have the best jobs in the world, doing what we’ve always dreamed of doing, doing it with our favorite people in the world.
“I miss Cadey,” he muses out of nowhere. And I suddenly realize how far he’s come. From the completely carefree, run amok at every opportunity, playboy bachelor, it can’t be easy for him to be committed to one woman, who’s left him to go half way across the world. He must really love her.
“I know, man. She’s a good one.”
“Yeah. And I probably wouldn’t have her, if I hadn’t taken some chances, you know?”
I think back to the troubles they faced in the beginning, and how if they hadn’t completed trusted each other, believed that it was either now or never, things would have turned out very differently.
He heaves himself out of the seat and looks me dead in the eye. “I mean, sometimes you’ve just got to decide what’s important in your life. And whether you’re ready for happiness or not.”
And then he leaves.
What just happened?
I don’t know if he meant to or not, but he’s set off a bomb in my brain.
And the next 40 minutes whizz by with me seeing nothing but the images of what could be in my head.